


salt water

by shizuumi151



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Study, Descriptions of bullying and harassment, Descriptions of fighting and violence, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Happy Ending, Mentions of Racism, Non-Binary/Gender-Neutral My Unit, Other, Romantic Fluff, Spoilers for Claude’s backstory, Spoilers for the Golden Deer Route, platonic fluff, romantic kisses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 18:03:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20492996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shizuumi151/pseuds/shizuumi151
Summary: His smiles may be for show, but it says something that he puts one on at all. For anyone and everyone plotting against him, he won’t even fake tears to get the jump on them. They’ll never see him cry.In his time enrolled in Garreg Mach’s Officers Academy, Claude doesn’t shed a tear within its walls.—If Claude were an angry crier, and no one ever knew.





	salt water

**Author's Note:**

> I did three routes in a beautiful 180 hours playing FE3H and I loved every moment of it
> 
> I use gender-neutral pronouns for Byleth to keep it ambiguous - they can be male, female, or non-binary as you see fit. Hope you enjoy the read!

Claude is known for wearing long-sleeved shirts.

It starts from when he was still living in Almyra, when he reaches the cusp of adolescence. Even at the height of sweltering summer of the Harpstring Moon, he chalks it up to an odd peculiarity of his body preferring the heat with a smile that comes easy. Even in the chill of the Lone Moon, the Almyran sun still reigns high and white.

Easy smiles and long-sleeved shirts. A two-pronged approach to cloaking the cuts and bruises he gets from his fights. It’s foolproof every time.

Almost every time.

“Claude, what _happened_?”

He scrunches his eyes just as he closes the door, out of his parents’ eyeshot. Apparently they decided not to be napping around their designated napping hours.

“Ma, honestly, would you relax?” Claude sighs. His mother still looks like she’s about to have a conniption when he turns around, and his shoulders sag. “Trust me, it looks worse than it feels. Nader just got a lucky shot in when he were training. That’s all.”

“I didn’t know you’d moved onto hand-to-hand combat,” his father comments, arms crossed and his gaze absolutely withering. Claude doesn’t meet his eye. “You just started with archery, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, and we’re still doing that. I just asked him to teach me hand-to-hand for close-range stuff, ‘cause a bow doesn’t exactly make for a good gauntlet now, does it?” He pushes himself to look up, and his chest grows heavy at the concern rolling off his parents in waves. “Guys, seriously. One vulnerary and I’ll be fine. Promise. Can I get a little shut-eye in my room, please?”

When they finally let him go, he ducks away to his room and makes sure to lock the door. He slides out his stash of salves, balms, and herbal remedies beneath his bed and takes a seat. He peels off his shirt clinging to the sweat of his torso like his skin is laden with barbed wire, hissing when pain splinters fresh into his muscles.

“Ugh.” He peeks down at his abdomen, wincing at the flesh mottled green and purple there. “That’s definitely gonna leave a mark…”

He gets a clean cloth and applies some salve to the splotchy bruises on his stomach and chest, disinfectant stinging on the microscopic cuts that litter his skin.

He tends to his wounds like clockwork, but thinks of the insult from the coward that sucker-punched him in the face. His fists sting, dotted with blood, but Claude would smash them against the bones of the bastard’s nose and jaw again if he could. A follow-up from saying his Fòdlan mother had moxie in whoring herself out to one of their own, flecks of spit flew from his cut mouth, telling him to join her in going back where they came from.

His jaw is sour, tensing so tightly. Heat wells in his throat, spills out from his eyes, and he sniffs through his nose, raw and starting to clog as teardrops splash onto his first aid kit.

He rubs them away with his forearm once, gritting his teeth when he starts bandaging his chest. When his tears start falling like rain, staining tracks onto his cheeks, he doesn’t bother wiping them again.

* * *

For as long as he can remember, Claude only cries out of anger.

He remembers his mother scooping him into his arms when he was truly small. When he was smart enough to tell he startled her from her reading, but too young to care, as he let her soothe his shouting, angry tears in the plush leather and silk of her coat. When his mother was away, his father’s calloused thumb brushed away his hot tears instead, deep voice rumbling in comfort as Claude yelled himself hoarse into his shoulder.

He only tells them that the bullies are mean. He doesn’t tell them the spitting of other children jeering at why he looks different, the acid laced in the slits of adults' and nobles' eyes, coated so thick with venom Claude can feel it bleed where they pierce his foreign eyes and light skin.

It was a short-lived time he could coast off his youth. His parents tell him with utmost love how difficult his life will be. How he has to take it upon himself to grow as strong as he can on his own. He must.

The next time a spell of anger possesses him as a child, he bolts for his room, locks the door, and screams into his pillow. He sits up when the sun starts to dip below the hills, huffing and panting till his throat is sore for breath, his pillowcase stained with snot and tears. Nose burning, vision clearing from the unending blur that threatened to spill over hours before.

From then on, he learns to cry on his own.

* * *

Bolstered by his bloodline, armed with his ambition, Claude breaches Fòdlan’s Throat to prove to his countrymen the integrity and dignity of Fòdlan’s people. What bravery his mother had showed him, day after day.

When he hears the same vitriol that poisoned his childhood snuck into the mouths of Fòdlan’s people about Almyra, his worldview shatters.

His blunt nails cut into his palms, knuckles clenching till they go pale. Settling into his lavish, sunlit, empty new bedroom in Leicester, he dreams of Fodlan’s Throat coated in glass. Warping the light that comes through from the other side, no matter where you gazed upon it from.

When he wakes up, he weeps for the first time in years, flooded by fury.

* * *

His smiles may be for show, but it says something that he puts one on at all. For anyone and everyone plotting against him, he won’t even fake tears to get the jump on them. They’ll never see him cry.

In his time enrolled in Garreg Mach’s Officers Academy, Claude doesn’t shed a tear within its walls.

* * *

Professor Byleth Eisner. The Ashen Demon. Only child to the Blade Breaker. Handpicked to teach at Garreg Mach by Alois of the Knights of Seiros and approved by Archbishop Rhea herself.

They roam the academy campus shrouded in black, and Claude can already pick out the metaphor for how little he knows about their past. How little anyone seems to know, including the professor themselves. It haunts him. Intrigues him. He has to know.

He lies back on the nest of books on his bed, strewn with tomes dog-eared and split open on the comforter. His thoughts swirl with the Central Church, Crests, Beasts, and his walking blank slate of a Teach, his hopes bold and defiant in the face of his impossible dreams.

He realises with wide eyes that he’s smiling with no one to see. He wonders when was the last time he had a genuine smile, and lets out a bright, quiet laugh.

* * *

Byleth has nothing to hide. Even after they’re able to wield the Sword of the Creator and Claude’s mind goes to Almyra and back thinking how he can use that, he learns they’re in the dark as much as he is. It’s what inspires him to pull them out of the darkness with him.

Claude makes a point to observe them, and he’s as dutiful as he is covert about it. Instead of what treachery he learns to expect, slowly, he finds their humanity crawling out its shell. Never gone so much as it was hidden. Tucked away in a long slumber and only easing out subtly. Gradually. More and more until they become the talk of the academy, among students and staff and knights alike.

Seeing them sprint around campus. Helping anyone they can with errands and lost items. Making sure the dining hall was stocked with fish and the greenhouse stayed green. Utterly diligent and everyday, except for how they talked to any and every student they can, asking whether they would like to join the Golden Deer, no matter who or where they came from.

Isn’t that all Claude ever wanted in a professor, if not the world?

* * *

Twinges of it in the ball following the White Heron Cup, fuelling his promise of a reunion at the Millennium Festival that surprises even himself. Teases in the back of the swamp of his mind, when Byleth comes upon him in the Goddess Tower and they talk under the moonlight. Most strongly, perhaps, when they disappear by Solon’s trap, and descend from a fiery slash in the sky, hair opalescent in the sun and the Sword of the Creator’s ruby roaring glow.

The warmth of having their company. The guilt of thinking of using them. The momentary terror of losing them, followed by the awe, relief, and absolute conviction in his professor before even witnessing their return.

Claude trusts Byleth. Outside of his family, he trusts someone, and the fact’s more dizzying than any poison he’s ever concocted.

* * *

War descends upon Garreg Mach, and the Empire’s forces choke her in their talons. Claude learns in the aftermath of the great dragon ripping the town asunder that Byleth is nowhere to be found.

Bearing witness to the wreckage of the monastery, he heads for Leicester Alliance. He organises the pieces in his mind, finds his position on the board and everyone else’s, and plots where he has to move from there. When his professor’s piece comes back into play is up to them.

He’s always looked to the stars instead of the gods, but Claude knows his faith is in Byleth.

* * *

Three years after Fòdlan is plunged into war and Garreg Mach Monastery is abandoned, Claude finds himself stargazing atop his sleeping wyvern.

The night is warm, watched over by the Great Tree Moon. His mind casts back to his childhood days in Almyra’s summers, where he would sweat out his scars beneath his long-sleeved shirts that cover him even now.

The stars sparkle against the twilit skies. He wonders what Byleth would think. What they would say if they gazed upon the same stars as him, wherever they were.

Three years after Byleth goes missing, Claude learns that he’s fallen in love.

* * *

Even while war-torn, the town of Garreg Mach is a sight to behold in the dawn.

Claude gets up bright and early on the day of the Millennium Festival. He already toured the remains of the monastery, comparing it to the pristine towers and buildings that remain standing in his mind’s eye, five years ago. He stops at the Goddess Tower, so he can treat himself to one of the best views in Fòdlan, embraced by the first light of day.

He hears footsteps coming up the tower. His instinct to consider an intruder, and plan out his escape route stays asleep. Somehow, the sound of them growing closer doesn’t distract him from the stunning view.

When his eyes find Byleth, as young as the day they disappeared, it feels like what he imagines going back to Almyra will feel like.

“You overslept, Teach! Pretty rude to keep a fella waiting like that, wouldn’t you say?”

When he goes up closer to Byleth, forgoing the view for a while. Seeing the recognition light up Byleth’s face, he wonders if the sight of Garreg Mach at dawn could hold a candle to their shock morphing into wonder.

“What’s with the surprised look, my friend?” All the while, Claude’s smile stays on his face, warm and true like the daytime sun. “You didn’t think I’d given up on you coming back, did you?”

It feels like coming home.

* * *

The one time Claude feels nostalgic for home has to be when Byleth knocks on his door.

“Claude?” Their voice comes muffled through the hardwood. He nearly spins off his bed. “I need to talk to you. It’s about the battalion assignments.”

“_Blast—_” Claude clutches his head, tugging at his headscarf to no avail. It stays impeccably secure, to his earlier pride and now dismay. “My friend, it’s quite late! Surely we can table this for first thing tomorrow morning—”

“I would, if that wasn’t when we were going to dispatch our troops for the skirmish in town.” The door starts to open, and a shot of panic seizes Claude. “No need to dress up, it’s just one thing we have to clarify before…”

They stop at the doorway. The only sign of surprise on their face is the soft rise of their brows, seeing Claude sitting on his bed, a yellow and blue, Almyran scarf wrapped around his head.

They stare at each other in silence. Claude’s mind is sprinting a mile a minute. He’s a master of lying by omission, but he’s not ready to admit to the full background of his blood. Not just yet.

“…Trying out a new look?” Byleth says. They appraise it with a tilt of their head. “It’s quite nice.”

All thinking grinds to a halt. He’s left blinking from the vertigo.

“You…think so?”

“Why the surprise? I didn’t think you were one to be self-conscious about your looks.” Byleth cocks a brow, closing the door behind them. “But more importantly, I have some misgivings about these assignments we have drafted here.”

For a moment, Claude can do nothing but stare at them shuffling papers in their hands. When they notice he hasn’t moved, Byleth looks up again in concern. Their brows furrow.

“…You’re really worried about it.”

“No! Well, a little. I just…” He scratches his nose, a laugh of bewilderment leaving him. “It’s a bit of a…_foreign_ look, y’know? Wasn’t sure how people would take to it.”

Byleth gives a hum at that. They look carefully at Claude again, and he wonders, briefly, whether they could see through him all this time.

“Certainly, it’s not something you see often. But that’s what makes it worth looking at.”

Effortless. Like the perfect swing of a blade, forming a cut invisible to the naked eye, they cleanly slash all of Claude’s scruples in two.

Swallowing his silver tongue, he wonders if he’ll ever graduate from being their student. The thought has a hearty chuckle escaping him.

“You think a fashion statement like this can go so far as the battlefield?” Claude grins, eyes twinkling. “It might attract unwanted attention, after all.”

“Your uniform is a glorified golden quilt and you wield a Hero’s Relic atop your albino wyvern.” Byleth raises a pointed brow. “I don’t believe subtlety is your strong suit.“

There’s a pinch to Claude’s cheeks. He realises the ache is from the force of his grin, unbridled and wide while he laughs. Spilled over more and more from his heart, warmed from the inside out, all at himself in the company of his old professor and dear, dear friend.

He’s lucky enough to have Byleth be so understanding, smiling back at him. Sharing the moment of levity in the weight of wartime instead of chiding him for it.

“Now, come on. Take a look at these battalion assignments with me.”

“Of course, my friend,” Claude says, still smiling from leftover laughter when he goes to Byleth’s side. “Anything for you.”

* * *

“The size of this catch was unbelievable. I thought my line would break twice. Its mouth was the size of my fist.” Byleth held their arms out to demonstrate the sheer length of it, before their hands relaxed down to Claude’s chest again. “The grandfather of all Fòdlandies. It shone in the light, too. You would’ve liked to see it.”

Resting against the headboard of their bed, Claude gazes down at Byleth laying in the cocoon between his arm and his side, tracing circles on his undershirt. The light of dawn filtered through the golden curtains, casting Byleth’s hair aglow where it catches white in the light. If he looks out the window, he would see the town starting to rise with the sun, merchants readying their wares and travellers coming in to find a place to stay, chatting with others from all walks of life as they do. A life as mundane and diverse as one could possibly be. As one he had always hoped for.

Eight years.

Since he left Almyra for Fòdlan to pursue his dreams, Claude weeps for the first time in eight years.

He wonders when he’s wept in front of someone else last, when Byleth turns to him.

“Claude?” The sheets shift as they shoot up, pushing the braid out of his eyes. “Darling, what’s wrong?”

They bring a hand up to his cheeks, thumbing away the tears trailing warm down them, and Claude comes back to himself in a gasp.

In his own surprise, he can do nothing but stare. Taking in the sight of Byleth’s sincere, bright, and wonderful features creased in concern for him. Worry swallowing their eyes, bleeding through their gaze into his.

For the first time he knows of, Claude isn’t crying from anger.

Sharing a peaceful morning with his beloved, in a world he dreamed of as a saddened, resentful, hated boy in Almyra, he feels something rooted far deeper, when he brings his forehead to Byleth’s.

“These are happy tears, my love.” Tears dripping from his lashes, he opens his eyes to see his partner still searching him. Filled with confusion and overflowing with care, and he beams a radiant smile at them. “No need to worry your lovely head over it.”

Byleth studies him once more, before their face melts into one of relief. They kiss each errant teardrop that cascades down his cheeks, and Claude laughs at the warmth tickling them.

“Just when I think I know you well, you spring another surprise on me,” Byleth muses as they cup Claude’s face, smiling as they plant another kiss chaste on his lips. “I didn’t take you to be a happy crier.”

“Believe me, it’s news to me as well,” he chuckles. His hand finds the back of Byleth’s neck, his other their shoulder. “But what’s a couple of tears in the end?” Claude wonders aloud. He finds an answer as he smiles, feather-soft into their lips. “Nothing but salt water.”

**Author's Note:**

> The Golden Deer route is hands down my favourite in Three Houses, and it had me wondering about Claude’s angrier and sadder sides that we never truly see because he’s that heroic and wonderful and deep in the game (non-sequitur but you can guess who I married at this point)
> 
> I also found out there’s a fanzine for Claude coming out with applications soon to be open, so what better way to practise for it than to get a fic out there of my new all-time favourite character
> 
> It’s my first time writing for FE3H and it’s been a while since I strayed from writing the characters I usually do, so I hope I did justice to writing Claude and my spin of Byleth faithfully to the game while injecting my headcanons into it. If you liked the read and want to let me know, do leave a comment! :)
> 
> [tumbly link](https://shizuumi151.tumblr.com/post/187446875715/his-smiles-may-be-for-show-but-it-says-something)
> 
> [twitty link](https://twitter.com/shizuumi151/status/1168591229577097216?s=19)


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